| Waiting for Silent Sunrise [Asuma, Ibiki, Kakashi, Ginta] |
[Jan. 28th, 2012|04:12 pm] |
[Takes place immediately following Somewhere a Clock is Ticking]
The medic was about as cheerful as a sack of wet mice, but at least she was good at her job—and she’d divested the landscape of Ibiki, which was no bad thing.
Asuma held his half-lidded trance, humming soft and tuneless in the back of his throat as he pushed heat into Hatake and Ginta, sweat prickling at his temples and down his spine. Ibiki’s fire was bright and healthy, making the shadows dance, another good source of warmth.
“Cracked skull,” Saiyuri muttered to herself, in the same low way she’d said broken orbital socket; broken nose for Ginta. Her glowing hands were still wrapped around Kakashi’s head, doing who-knew-what to whatever piece of damage was lurking under all that blood-matted hair.
“Is his brain bleeding?” Asuma asked quietly, because that was a career-ender right there, if it didn’t snuff Hatake’s life out completely.
She shushed him.
Asuma bit his tongue.
A little snow drifted down outside, hissing as it landed in the fire, but the sky was still clear and star-spangled, lit up silver by a sickle moon. Ginta’s breathing rasped, soft but even. Pakkun crawled into Asuma’s lap, banished from his master with a stern word and a sharp glare. Asuma rumpled his ears with a free hand, sparing a twist of heat for the little dog.
( And waited. ) |
|
|
| Same Ghost Every Night [Kakashi, Katsuko] |
[Jan. 21st, 2012|06:25 pm] |
[[Takes place early on November 3rd, four days after As The World Burns]]
She’s burning, everyone’s burning, flesh melting away from blackened bones. Honoka’s standing over her, bleeding around the kunai in her throat, silent accusation worse than a death sentence. Daichi’s screaming, curled around the blackened stump of his leg—
It was ANBU headquarters; people were used to random noises at all hours of the night. When Katsuko flailed awake, falling out of bed with a resounding crash, the only thing the woman in 316 did was knock on the wall between their rooms and call, “You still alive?”
After a moment, Katsuko stopped panting long enough to form words. “Looks like,” she croaked.
“Try not to put any holes in things,” 316 advised, and that was that. Katsuko kicked the blanket off and sat up, closing her eyes and pressing the heels of her palms into them hard enough she saw stars against her eyelids.
( There was insomnia, and then there was seeing dead and injured teammates every time she dozed off. ) |
|
|
| As The World Burns [Kakashi, Katsuko, Ryouma] |
[Jan. 21st, 2012|05:25 pm] |
[Takes place on October 30, seven days after Nothing To Fear]
After her conversation with Ryouma in the cafe, after she’d finally reassured herself that he was alive and well and not a figment of her imagination, Katsuko had parted ways with him at a nearby intersection and started making her meandering way back to HQ. A glint in the display window of a nearby pawnshop had caught her eye and she’d stopped to look at it, curious.
What she found there made inspiration spark.
The refitters had said it would take a week to get the inscription done, so at ten in the morning—seven days after she’d bumped into Ryouma in an elevator and found out he wasn’t dead—she knocked on the door of one Hatake Kakashi’s apartment and waited, holding a wrapped package in her arms.
She’d forgotten to eat, as usual, and her stomach growled faintly as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. Idly, she wondered if Ryouma would be willing to let her rifle through Hatake’s kitchen. Surely a living legend would have a few spare granola bars laying around? |
|
|
| A Light That Never Goes Out [3/3] [Kakashi & Ryouma] |
[Jan. 21st, 2012|02:07 pm] |
[Follows directly after A Light That Never Goes Out [2/3], the day before Nothing to Fear]
“Ow,” said Ryouma, much later. “I think I sprained something.”
“I think you deserved it,” Kakashi told him, watching narrow-eyed as little Jin walked stumble-footed up the garden path to a ramshackle house, hand in hand with Orin. Makoto and his red-headed friend, Saburo, had already gone. Saki was half-asleep on Ryouma’s back. “Are you sure it’s safe here?” Kakashi murmured.
It smelled like disuse and sweat and something rotten.
On Ryouma’s other side, Hanato nodded decisively. “Orin is Jin’s cousin,” he said. “She’ll look out for him.”
Kakashi glanced sidelong at Ryouma.
Ryouma just looked tired, suddenly, and a little sad. “She does a better job than I could. C’mon.” He turned, hefting Saki, who gave a quiet mumble and kicked one foot against his side. “Where’re you staying these days, Hanato? Still with your uncle?”
“Yeah,” said Hanato, flat. His eyes skated to Kakashi, clearly unwilling to discuss things with an interloper around.
Ryouma’s teeth bit into his lower lip, scent curling uncertain for a long enough moment that Kakashi almost offered to take Saki so that Ryouma could just go and talk to his furious little lieutenant, but then Ryouma came to his decision. “I’m tied down here in Konoha for the next month at least, til I’m mission-fit again and they decide what to do with me. I'll try to come down here more regular, but if you need to get in touch, don’t bother trying talk to ‘em up at HQ. Kakashi's putting me up right now—”
( He paused and glanced at Kakashi, and Kakashi realized Ryouma probably didn’t know the address. ) |
|
|
| A Light That Never Goes Out [2/3] [Kakashi & Ryouma] |
[Jan. 21st, 2012|01:59 pm] |
[Follows directly after A Light That Never Goes Out [1/3], the day before Nothing to Fear]
The cheapest jacket Threads had to offer was a plain navy blue hoodie that Ryouma picked up without a second glance and slung on the counter.
Kakashi rolled his eyes, returned it to the rack, and went to the back of the store. It took him a second to find what he was looking for—broad shoulders and a slim waist made a trickier combination when you added height as well—but he knew he’d picked right when Ryouma’s eyes flicked wide.
“This one,” Kakashi said, holding up a heavy leather jacket dyed espresso-dark. He eyed it consideringly. “Looks sturdy enough to turn a blade.”
“That costs as much as half a B-rank,” Ryouma said, slightly strangled.
“Good. Then you know it’s strong enough to put up with all the abuse you’ll give it.” And it had the rock star edge Ryouma coveted, which Kakashi knew looked good on him. He tossed it to Ryouma, who caught it reflexively. “Try it on.”
Ryouma hesitated, fingertips brushing the leather, then set his mouth and shrugged the jacket on with a touch of a dramatic flare, like a man donning armour. He zipped it halfway and flexed his shoulders, twisting at the hip. The jacket was just a little loose, leaving enough room for the muscle Ryouma wanted to put back on, but it moved like water. “Feels good,” he said, a little surprised, a little longing. “Warm. How’s it look?”
( Like sex on legs. ) |
|
|
| A Light That Never Goes Out [1/3] [Kakashi & Ryouma] |
[Jan. 21st, 2012|01:46 pm] |
[Takes place immediately after Stranger in a Strange Land, and the day before Nothing to Fear.]
Somewhere in the warm glow of mid-morning, Kakashi woke up and realized Ryouma wasn't there. His scent was still there, weaving through the air and the sheets like a living ribbon, and relief came in the shape of he’s alive, I’m not crazy, but there was still a hole in the world where Ryouma should have been standing.
He’d had bad dreams. Maybe he was walking them off.
And maybe good things happened to nice people.
Kakashi was up, half dressed and three-quarters panicked when the lock turned against the latch and Ryouma walked through the door.
"Morning!” he said cheerfully, kicking his boots off and hefting a cardboard box that smelled like sugar. “Shirtless is a good look on you. Cake?"
( It would have been counter-productive to murder him with a coat-hanger, but for a moment Kakashi was severely tempted. ) |
|
|
| Stranger in a Strange Land [Asuma, Ryouma] |
[Jan. 5th, 2012|11:26 pm] |
[[Takes place the evening of October 21st and the morning of October 22nd, immediately after Resting Easy and Wise Men Keep Secrets, and the day before Ryouma’s meeting with Katsuko in Nothing to Fear.]]
The rumours of Ryouma’s return went through the village like wildfire. Asuma caught the gossip on the second evening, when he went to hand in a muddy but completed mission brief at the chuunin-desk, and found the pretty redhead in tears.
“Bad news, darlin’?”
She beamed at him, so he figured no.
It took him half an hour to get a coherent story out of her, but by the end of it he was grinning too.
“Crafty son of a bitch,” he said. “I thought for sure he was dead. Hey, is there any news on Akimichi Hitai?”
Reiko’s smile faded.
“Well, one out of two still ain’t bad,” Asuma said, a little sorry he’d brought it up. “I’m gonna have to take him around a cake, or something. You know where he’s staying?”
She wiped her eyes, blowing her nose lustily into the handkerchief he’d managed to find for her. Somehow, she managed to make that pretty, too. Kunoichi talent, he figured.
“I think...” she hesitated, and he arched his eyebrows. “It seemed like he was going home with Hatake Kakashi.”
( Asuma blinked. ) |
|
|
| Somewhere a Clock Is Ticking [Asuma, Ibiki, Kakashi, Ginta] |
[Dec. 9th, 2011|02:02 am] |
[Takes place May 3, immediately following Tiny Little Fractures and approximately six hours following All Fall Down]
As mission partners went, Morino Ibiki ranked somewhere between creepy and bitchy, but at least he didn’t get seasick. The boat ride from Kuroihama to Hima was long, cold, and mostly boring. Asuma used the time to catch up on sleep in the hold, wedging himself between a netted stack of boxes and a dozen oiled canvas bags filled with sheepskins.
Ibiki stayed up on deck, brooding against the railing.
At least, it had looked like brooding. Maybe he’d been going over his grocery list.
When Asuma dragged himself yawning back to the deck, hours later, and forced a cigarette to light against the wind, the weather was icy. Unseasonably so for freakin’ May, even as far north as Lightning Country.
( He found Ibiki still brooding, but on the opposite side. ) |
|
|
| Somebody Saved Me [Genma, Katsuko] |
[Nov. 30th, 2011|11:26 pm] |
[Adult Content Warning: This thread contains one NC-17 moment, about half-way through, which is noted in the title of the entry containing it.]
[Takes place in early September, approximately four months following Tiny Little Fractures and Something We’ve Been Missing.]
When Genma got the mission assignment, he didn’t tell Raidou. Not the details, anyway. Not that it was an eros mission. He packed up his kit and put his tools together, and sealed the necessary clothes and equipment into a scroll while Raidou was out for a run.
It wasn’t like Genma was cheating exactly, but... He felt weird about it. Felt so weird about it that he couldn’t quite bring himself to say, when he was kissing Raidou goodbye, “By the way, I’m going to be sucking cock on this mission. Don’t worry, I’ll play safe.”
He kissed his lover goodbye, shouldered his pack, pulled his mask into place, and went to the mission briefing without managing to mention what kind of mission this was at all. And he felt just a little like a bastard about it.
( The briefer was a woman Genma knew pretty well ) |
|
|
| This Broken World We Choose [Backstory: Tousaki Miyako] |
[Nov. 30th, 2011|01:03 am] |
[[Although this story takes place around 24 years before the main events of Fallen Leaves, it is part of official Leaves canon. It is also a birthday present for Dark, who asked for the story of how Ryouma's parents met. Sequels may follow!]]
He’s leaning on the bar nursing a bottle of beer when Miyako comes up to order another round, and since the bartender’s busy getting his flirt on with a redhead at the far end Miyako takes her time appreciating the man at her elbow. Tall, the way she likes ‘em, with scarred hands and black hair and no obvious insignia of clan or rank. When he tips his head back to drink the sweeping line of his throat and jaw is like calligraphy.
“Drinking alone?” she asks.
He glances down at her, and if he’s drunk enough to be startled it’s only a flicker behind dark eyes. “I was.”
There’s a bandage nearly hidden beneath the short sleeve of his black tee-shirt, a scabbing scrape along his high, chiseled cheekbone. Miyako’s a chuunin of Konoha; she knows well enough not to ask if it’s the mission that has him drinking here alone, or where his teammates are. Her own teammates from her latest mission are waiting in a booth at the back, but they can wait a bit longer. She rests her elbows on the bar and tosses her long hair back, inviting his gaze to linger. “If the bartender ever bothers to do his job, let me buy you one.”
“Do I look like I need it?” There’s a momentary tension in his mouth--professional paranoia, she thinks. Jounin.
That would be enough of a turn-off for most girls she knows, genin and chuunin alike. (Civilians are too silly to know better. Miyako and the other kunoichi watch out for the civilian girls when they can, warn them off the dangerous ones, and shrug and go back to their beers when the little fools brush their warnings off.)
( But Tousaki Miyako has never been most girls. ) |
|
|
| Nothing To Fear [Ryouma, Katsuko] |
[Nov. 20th, 2011|06:27 pm] |
[[Takes place October 23, two days after Resting Easy.]]
It was hard, when you were the only person in ANBU--hell, in the village--with chakra reserves bloated to a size slightly larger than your average elephant. There was no precedent for how to deal with it when the inevitable erosion of your coils began, nor did anyone know what to do when you nearly blew yourself up trying to light a campfire with a D-level sneeze of a katon jutsu.
They didn’t know how to fix you, but that sure as hells didn’t stop them from trying.
Katsuko let the door to the examination swing shut behind her, feeling like someone had clawed her skull to ribbons from the inside. The hour-long appointment had been torture, as usual, exercise after exercise of trying to contort her chakra into seals and jutsu too small to accommodate it anymore. It was humbling to realize that she’d have to light fires the civilian way from now on, unless she wanted to singe her eyebrows and ruin another pair of gloves again.
If it went on like this, if her control continued to erode, she’d only be useful as a walking bomb. She sighed, rolling her shoulders to dissipate some of the tension that had built up over the session, and tried not to think about it. |
|
|
| Wise Men Keep Secrets [Kakashi, Ryouma] |
[Nov. 18th, 2011|10:09 pm] |
[[Takes place the morning of October 21st, directly after Resting Easy.]]
The carpeting outside of the Hokage’s office smelled faintly of blood. The two flanking guards were spotless in their uniforms and blank-faced, but the chuunin assistant behind the receptionist’s desk looked a little pale.
Kakashi stood with his hands shoved into his pockets, freshly showered and shaved and dressed in jounin blues, and waited. On the other side of the thick, brass-handled door, muted voices argued back and forth. Occasionally, the Hokage’s steady murmur would break in.
“Hatake-san, you don’t have an appointment,” the chuunin said wearily. He was a short, slim man with slicked back hair and a white scar cutting across one cheekbone. “Sandaime-sama is busy.”
“I’ll wait.”
The chuunin blew out an aggravated sigh, returning to the heavy stack of paperwork in front of him. One of the guards looked fractionally amused.
The sun drew a slow arc across the floor, edging warmth up Kakashi’s leg as the apex caught him just before noon. He meditated on his feet, ignoring the rustlings and pen-scritchings of bureaucracy, the guards’ shift change, the scent of the chuunin’s bento-boxed curry lunch. Diplomats and council-members with appointments arrived and were politely turned away, informed that the Hokage’s morning meeting had run unexpectedly long. More than one of them threw a curious glance Kakashi’s way.
“Is that—” began an older woman, cutting herself off.
“Sakumo’s son,” muttered the elderly man accompanying her.
The woman looked very much like she wanted to spit; Kakashi wondered which family member she’d lost to his father’s mistake.
It was an hour past noon when the office door suddenly slammed open, startling the chuunin into dropping a pen. The guards didn’t blink. A tall, hawk-faced man stormed out, followed by two younger men, only to be brought up short by Kakashi in his way. The first man was wearing the grey and black diplomatic robes of an Iwagakure envoy, stitched with gold threads down the sleeves; his eyes widened slightly.
“You,” he snapped. He whirled back on the doorway. “Is this deliberate?”
The Hokage gave Kakashi the barest edge of a look that suggested he wouldn’t mind whacking him upside the head with his official hat.
“Merely a coincidence, Kanen-san,” he said, tucking his hands into his sleeves. “I believe Hatake-san has a separate issue he’d like to discuss with me.”
( Hatake-san. Kakashi stayed expressionless. He hadn’t been Agent Hatake for three months, now. ) |
|
|
| All Fall Down [Ginta, Kakashi] |
[Nov. 14th, 2011|12:57 am] |
[Takes place May 3, immediately following Off the Edge of the Map]
Half an hour passed before the shivering set in, while Ginta waited for Kakashi to do anything other than breathe. Cold from the floor, cold from shock, cold from unstemmed bleeding. The oppressive darkness turned hazy and gray, reducing Ginta’s world to Kakashi, unmoving but warm in his arms, and the icy dizziness trembling up from within. Baiji whined a worried sound when Ginta swayed, and tucked himself up close, sheltering both ninja against a broad, rough side.
A few chunks of ruined masonry fell, a groan rattled through the rubble, but their false cave held its shape.
Warmth.
The mastiff turned his massive head and licked at the blood on Ginta’s chin with another anxious whine.
From somewhere deep within, resolve reasserted itself. He could sit here and bleed to death, or he could deal. No. There wasn’t a choice. He would deal.
( He eased one arm away from Kakashi and found a second roll of bandage ) |
|
|
| How to Disappear [Asuma, Katsuko] |
[Nov. 13th, 2011|09:13 pm] |
[Backstory: Takes place in November two years after the Kyuubi, six months after In A Place Like This. Katsuko is fifteen and Asuma is seventeen in this.]
The cell to right of hers had been empty for two weeks, now. When the orderlies slammed open the basement door, supporting a limp body between them, Katsuko’s only thought was a listless, I hope the new guy’s quieter than the last one.
Hakuin coughed, a bone-dry rattle that echoed in the suddenly silent hallway. Ichiba was curled up in the far corner of his cell, eyes round as dinner plates over the huddle of his arms. Katsuko herself rose to a half-crouch, craning her head towards the new prisoner’s faceless silhouette.
One of the orderlies fumbled open the lock to the empty cell while the other manhandled the prisoner over the threshold; he landed on the dirty rushes with a heavy thump. She stared at him as the orderlies turned to leave, relaxing when she saw the ragged rise and fall of the man’s chest.
There was a collective sigh of relief when the basement door slammed shut; Katsuko exhaled, quietly, and crawled her way over to the grate set in the right wall of her cell. “Hey,” she whispered, peering at the dark form in the room beyond. “Hey. You all right there?” |
|
|
| Resting Easy [Kakashi and Ryouma] |
[Nov. 8th, 2011|08:08 pm] |
[[Takes place October 21, the morning after Find Me On High Ground.]]
Ryouma woke to sunlight stretching a wide ray of warmth across his face and chest, a bush warbler’s liquid chirping trill in the trees outside the window, and a lean, muscled arm thrown possessively over his ribcage. Kakashi was a solid heat at his back, one foot hooked over Ryouma’s ankle. His breath tickled Ryouma’s ear.
For a long, delicious moment Ryouma lay still, eyes half-slit against the sunshine. He hadn’t dreamed it. And this was no genjutsu, either; no Suna nin would think to add the delicate detail of the bush warbler’s autumn song. He was safe in Konoha, waking up in Sharingan no Kakashi’s bed, and the rest of his life stretched out before him.
He drew a deep breath--sweat, cotton, a faint lingering aroma of last night’s stir-fry, Kakashi--and grinned ridiculously to himself. Then, caught by a sudden thought, twisted to his other side and wriggled up onto his elbow. Kakashi’s grip tightened a little, but he didn’t stir.
Ryouma had watched him sleep before. Sat vigil, more like, in the hospital and once, memorably, in a hotel room, after Kakashi took a double dose of a drug meant for Ryouma. He’d counted breaths until he lost track somewhere in the high five hundreds, hummed, sung, massaged limp limbs to prevent blood pooling, talked aloud to Kakashi and to himself. For all that, he realized, he’d never actually spent much time watching Kakashi. The mask was there, for one thing, and even when it wasn’t a vague sense of decency still constrained him; you didn’t stare at Kakashi’s naked, vulnerable face any more than you rifled through his underwear drawer.
( Seeing as how the rest of Kakashi was just as naked, though, Ryouma felt fully justified in a little aesthetic appreciation. ) |
|
|
| Find Me On High Ground [Ryouma and Kakashi] |
[Nov. 6th, 2011|01:26 am] |
It was autumn in Fire Country.
He hadn’t expected that. He still didn’t have a very clear idea of how much time had passed; no one had told him, and he didn’t dare ask. The two ANBU who’d been sent to escort him home seldom talked to each other, and even less frequently talked to him. Careful, precise orders: Wake up. Eat this. We’ll stop for the night now. They didn’t know how badly his brain was damaged; they weren’t trained to deal with it. He caught glints of fear, sometimes, in the hesitation before they touched him, in the awkward tilt of a masked face as they refused to meet his empty gaze.
They were ninja; they didn’t fear death. He was something out of every shinobi’s nightmares.
He wondered, sometimes, why the Hokage had bothered to bargain for him. Had the Kazekage clarified in his first--no doubt very politely worded--messages that the injured Konoha ninja who had just happened to appear in Sunagakure no Sato was a drooling idiot, or had he merely made vague mentions of serious injuries and gestures of good will and the possibility of opening up channels of communication between the two villages? A ninja crippled in combat was still owed something by his village, some return of his loyalty: rescue, healing, a tiny pension. A ninja who lost his mind would never know the difference.
The ANBU hadn’t known. It was clear from the shock in their rigid shoulders when they’d stepped through the doorway into his clean, white-washed room, seen him sitting on his bed, and stopped. One of them had known him, he learned later, listening to their murmured conversation by the campfire. Only briefly, from one mission last December--his first training mission, as it happened--but he’d been impressed with the rookie, then. He’d thought the boy had potential.
“He didn’t even make it to six months,” the woman said, eyeing him across the fire. “Poor bastard. What the hell is he supposed to do now?”
( Tousaki Ryouma stared blankly into the heart of the flames, and wondered the same thing. ) |
|
|
| Leaves is returning! |
[Nov. 6th, 2011|12:34 am] |
To our dear and faithful readers,
Leaves is not dead! It has been at least seven months since our last thread was posted, but we are glad to announce that soon there will be much more to read.
Ryouma's writer, Ki, has returned to us, and without giving away too many spoilers, Ryouma's story is not over. And of course there will be other familiar faces returning.
The plan is to kick things off with a six-month timeskip following Off the Edge of the Map, which is the last thread posted in the Kakashi-and-Ginta-go-after-Ryouma arc. Though rest assured, that arc will be finished.
We want to thank all of you who have stuck with us this long, especially those who have left reviews in the guestbook. We have read and treasured each one (even if we have been exceptionally lax about responding).
Keep an eye on the OOC forum, where announcements of threads will be put up as they’re posted, and as always feel free to leave us comments, questions, or otherwise in the forum, the guestbook, or right here.
Best regards,
Dark, Nezuko, Kilerkki, Phi, and Gunmetal,
Fallen Leaves Writers |
|
|
| In a Place Like This [Katsuko] |
[Oct. 31st, 2011|07:35 pm] |
[Backstory: Takes place during Katsuko’s six-month imprisonment in the labs, a year after Kyuubi. Katsuko is fifteen in this.]
There was no night down in the holding cells. For there to be night there’d have to be day, and who could tell which was which underground? Time was measured, instead, by the small increments between one experiment and the next—the hours between the rattle of a key in the lock, the creak of old steel as the orderlies wheeled the gurney down the long hallway.
They took away her forehead protector and weapons, her clothes and the family photo she kept in the leather pouch strung around her neck: vestiges of an old life, proof of an identity she no longer owned. In return she was given a number, 24, and a syringe of gleaming, clear liquid that burned as it forced into her veins. Before dragging her downstairs, into the dark, the orderlies shaved her head down to smooth stubble and dressed her in a rough tunic that came down to her knees; the drug they’d injected her with kept her numb and compliant, loose-limbed as a rag doll.
( The first night was the worst. ) |
|
|
| The Birthday Party (Ibiki, Idate, Tsume, Kiba, Hana, Kuromaru) |
[Mar. 2nd, 2011|03:02 pm] |
Takes place July 7, three months after Ibika’s rescue of Kiba from the Forest of Death in Where the Wild Things Are and Tsume’s failed search for Ryouma in Never and Always, and two months after Ibiki and Asuma’s retrieval mission for Kakashi and Ginta in Tiny Little Fractures (That arc will continue as planned, we’re just time-skipping Tsume and Ibiki)
Ibiki had never been inside the Inuzuka compound before. He’d walked by it plenty of times, but from the road all one could see were the dense thicket of trees that bordered the Inuzuka land and separated it from the rest of Konoha, and the occasional wisp of smoke from cooking fires. Rumor had it, according to his little brother Idate, that setting one uninvited foot onto the path through the trees would result in a vicious mauling by a pack of savage Inuzuka hounds that were too wild to be ninken.
“Jotaro’s brother tried it on a dare,” Idate said solemnly, “and he got his whole face eaten off, and you could see the bones and everything.”
“Really?” Ibiki asked. They were nearing the compound now, strolling under dappled shadows on the road next to the compound. The closer they got, the more Idate slowed down.
“Really, niisan. Really, really.”
(
“Well it’s a good thing we’re invited then, isn’t it? Do you have the invitation?” ) |
|
|
| Off the Edge of the Map [Kakashi and Ginta] |
[Feb. 9th, 2011|08:25 pm] |
[Follows immediately afterwards Tiny Little Fractures, on May 3rd.]
It had been more than three hours.
Kakashi blinked awake and found himself wrapped like ivy around Ginta, one arm thrown across a lean chest, forehead pressed hard against an ANBU tattoo. Every breath drew in a throatful of hard-sleeping scent: sweat and lead and charred flowers.
Slowly, Kakashi lifted his head.
Ginta was turned slightly towards him, laid out in an oddly contained sprawl. One leg kicked out, one hand curled loosely around Kakashi’s wrist. Every soft exhale clouded visibly in the cold air.
Without moving, Kakashi slid his gaze over to the tent flaps. Pakkun was curled up there, close to their feet, ears cocked towards the outside world. His eyes were closed. Outside the tent, dawn had given way to early morning, bright and grey and cold.
( It had been six hours at least, probably closer to eight, and Kakashi had spent it asleep in the arms of the wrong man. ) |
|
|
blank
depressed